Pyne retracts 'hurtful' Downfall comments

Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne has retracted comments he made over the weekend in which he compared the Government with a movie scene about the demise of Adolf Hitler.

Following the resignation of two senior ministers, Mr Pyne declared: "This Government is starting to resemble a scene from Downfall and the Prime Minister is presiding over a divided and dysfunctional Government."

His comments prompted demands for an apology from Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus, who described the remarks as deeply offensive.

"It is deeply hurtful to Holocaust survivors, it should be deeply offensive to any right-thinking Australian," he said.

"Certainly anyone who knows anything about Hitler's Third Reich, because that's what he's referring to, would know this is a disgraceful comment to make.

"I call on him to withdraw it and apologise for it."

This morning, Mr Pyne said he was not suggesting the Prime Minister bore any resemblance to Hitler, but that the chaos in the Government was similar to a scene from Downfall.

"I'm not necessarily apologising to Mark Dreyfus - because his is confected outrage designed to get a headline," Mr Pyne told Sky News.

"But if anybody else has taken offence at that, well of course I retract the statement."

He has called on Mr Dreyfus, who is Jewish, to apologise for comments he made in 2011 in which he likened Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's campaign against the carbon tax to Nazi propaganda.

"To call Tony Abbott Joseph Goebbels two years ago and not to apologise was an outrageous and sick thing to do and he should apologise for that," Mr Pyne said.

"I'm bigger than Mark Dreyfus, he can't apologise.

"Two years later he's still clinging to the idea that he was right and I'm quite happy to retract that statement if it clears the air. Mark Dreyfus should do the same."

But Mr Dreyfus says his comment was quite different because it was "very specific and targeted" to the propaganda techniques.

And he has hit back at Mr Pyne's "callous non-apology".

"Mr Pyne's description this morning of my personal response to his remarks as 'confected outrage' is grotesque," Mr Dreyfus said in a statement.

"The circumstances of my father and grandparents' arrival in Australia are detailed in my first speech to Parliament and have been on the public record since 2008."